Prove a Villain
by Esperance
Summary: What felt like a bomb detonation to Axel may have just been the end of a separation they'd been hurtling towards since day one. Axel/Roxas, KHII.


Title: prove a villain  
Author: parkingLOTinTHEidiot  
Rating: K  
Fandom/Characters/Pairing: Kingdom Hearts; Axel, Roxas; unrequited Axel/Roxas that goes both ways  
Word Count: 971 words  
Author's Notes: I put a Joy Division song on repeat for a few days and this materialized. Also, happy endings are lame but reviews are not.

* * *

"_And therefore, — since I cannot prove a lover,_

_To entertain these fair well-spoken days, —_

_I am determined to prove a villain,_

_And hate the idle pleasures of these days."_

_~William Shakespeare, Richard III_

* * *

What felt like a bomb detonation to Axel-the scattered debris and smoldering wreckage of a friendship torn apart by lies and things unsaid and a decided lack of feeling with the catalyst of the words "_I'm leaving to find out who I really am_"-may have just been the end of a separation they'd been hurtling towards since Day 1, their respective, infinitesimal dots on the big picture arcing in from different corners and only overlapping briefly before separating and twisting down unknown paths.

Maybe it was obvious from the start, and he'd been too willing to ignore it; a tidal wave rising from the distance and heading steadily to the shore with him turning his back at the edge of the sand and closing his eyes like it would go away and not destroy everything in its path-fitting, with the both of them exhausted from fighting their own physical battles and metaphorical ghosts, drenched by the steady downpour around them that the city should be infamous for.

It doesn't matter if they're crawling out from the rubble, heaving gasps of saltwater, or just standing in the middle of a side street of The World That Never Was, it's all the same: this is a goodbye on a permanent scale.

Maybe he knew, deep down, that it wouldn't last; nothing ever did, for people like them.

Though he's certainly not going to live by the spineless philosophy of just being thankful they ever met at all. This isn't his fault and it shouldn't be this way; he'll pin it on everyone else and the heart-shaped moon and timing and this destiny concept for taking the one good person left in his world.

And maybe Roxas had always known how this would end (-of course the only time he had been the one between the two of them keeping a secret was when it was the worst of all), that it would come to physical distancing and denial, becoming nothing more to one another than a memory and a name and repressed almost-feelings.

That is, if Roxas even bothers to think of him at all after this.

It doesn't end with him walking away, confidently declaring he won't be missed and Axel muttering something under his breath that might have made him return. Instead Axel yanks him back before he's taken two steps, and Roxas flinches at the contact enough to make Axel double check he hadn't burned him by mistake. But no, he'd just never liked to be touched, and the grip on his shoulder before he's released is as desperate as they both are at the moment. Axel finds a sliver of smugness from the flash of physical hurt that crosses his face instead of remorse-some part of him is still a child, and he lives by the motto of _if you're hit, hit back harder._

He is not a master with words that are truthful or are supposed to mend a broken situation, but speaking even the wrong ones with the right amount of conviction is usually all it takes. And Axel wants to have what it takes to keep him.

This is how the goodbye really goes:

Axel says, "You will not tear us apart."

And Roxas does not say "no."

He does not offer, "Come with me."

Does not issue the challenge: "You can't stop me anymore."

Nor does he offer some empty comfort, as he might once have-"I'll miss you" or "It's better this way."

Or even: "If I had a heart, I'd care too."

Instead, Roxas-

_Roxas,_

The boy Axel knows better than he knows himself, knows every corner of his mind, and the cause of the dark scar on his left arm that the cloak doesn't quite cover; the way his eyes change depending on his mood, from flecks of slate-grey to deep blue; the quirk of his lips and the sound of his laugh-back when he tried to find some sort of happiness in his existence instead of running off to find _meaning_.

He knows how he looks against a sunset, for a brief moment just the child he never was and no more, no less; the promises they made to one another that at one point meant something; the silences between them they couldn't quite break, and the truths that were always too heavy to say; how he couldn't keep a tune but still hummed the same song every time he was nervous; the way his body would mold against Axel's only at the end of the days when he was dead on his feet and only if Axel was still.

Every single imperfection, everything that got under his skin and burrowed somewhere in his chest, all the moments he's managed to commit to memory and all the ones he planned on having with him the rest of this life.

The person that Axel turned over to look at one day and found staring back, and for the first time made Axel hate what he was.

Roxas, standing there but already so far away, defiant down to his bones, speaking to a place over his shoulder with hard eyes that refuse to look at him and are instead cast at one of the neglected buildings in a city that will never live.

-says, "You're fighting to hold on to someone who isn't here anymore."

For all his youth and inexperience and convenient memory lapses, Roxas was never wrong about anything.

If Axel listens to the raindrops that never stop here, maybe he can pretend the rhythm is proof his heart isn't breaking.


End file.
